Capitalist Manifesto

* Book: New Capitalist Manifesto. Building a Disruptively Better Business, Umair Haque. Harvard Business Press, 2011

Citation

Umair Haque:

"So here’s the twenty-first-century capitalists’ agenda, in a nutshell. To rethink the “capital” — to build organizations that are less machines, and more living networks of the many different kinds of capital, whether natural, human, social, or creative. And second, to rethink the “ism”: how, when, and where the many different kinds of capital can be most productively seeded, nurtured, allocated, utilized — and renewed. Put both together, and the promise is for companies, countries, and economies to climb to a higher level of advantage, to scale a steeper apex of achievement."

Review

Excerpted from Sinan Si Ahir:

"Umair Haque approaches the fundamental question: Must profit always require economic harm? By comparing revolutionaries or “insurgents” (who are answering No) to foils or “incumbents” (fierce, historic rivals of revolutionaries) using an exhaustive study (through case studies, financial modeling, and interviews), he synthesizes the data to identify various new institutional cornerstones utilized by the insurgents.

The five cornerstones … invisible fixtures of everyday economic life: value chains as the means of production, value propositions as the means of positioning, strategy as the means of competition, protecting marketplaces as the means of advantage, and inert, fixed goods as the means of consumption.

- Twentieth-century capitalism’s cornerstones shift costs to and borrow benefits from people, communities, society, the natural world, or future generations. Both cost shifting and benefit borrowing are forms of economic harm that are unfair, nonconsensual, and often irreversible. Call it a great imbalance: not a transient event, like the “Great [insert ominous synonym here],” but an ongoing relationship, a titanic glitch in the global economy’s vast scales.

What I call deep debt is the harm institutionalized by the cornerstones of industrial era capitalism. It can be conceived of as debt owed to people, communities, society, the natural world, or future generations. Debt is simply shifted costs and borrowed benefits, from an economic point of view.

Twentieth-century (industrial era) capitalism is founded on competitive advantage, dumb growth, and thin value where the link between cornerstones & performance and institutions & returns is mere advantage.

Twenty-first-century (constructive) capitalism is founded on constructive advantage, smart growth, and thick value, which brings rebalance to the great imbalance. Constructive capitalists don’t just outperform, they redefine the boundaries of disruptive outperformance — they “minimize harm and maximize authentic, sustainable, meaningful value”. -

Cornerstones

Umair Haque explores the cornerstones of industrial era capitalism versus constructive capitalism:

- How production, consumption, and exchange happen — To utilize resources by renewing them instead of by exploiting them

• Industrial era Capitalism: Value chains

• Constructive Capitalism: Value cycles

Which products and services are produced, consumed, and exchanged — To allocate resources democratically and respond better to demand and supply shocks

       * Industrial era Capitalism: Value propositions
       * Constructive Capitalism: Value conversations

Why production, consumption, and exchange happen — To become more competitive over the long term instead of just blocking competition temporarily

       * Industrial era Capitalism: Strategies
       * Constructive Capitalism: Philosophies

Where and when production, consumption, and exchange happen — To create new arenas of competition (in their marketplaces), instead of just dominating existing ones

       * Industrial era Capitalism: Protection
       * Constructive Capitalism: Completion

What is produced, consumed and exchanged — To seek meaningful payoffs that mattered in human terms, not just financial ones

       * Industrial era Capitalism: Goods
       * Constructive Capitalism: Betters

The cornerstones of capitalism shift from chains, propositions, strategies, protection, and goods to cycles, conversations, philosophies, completion, and betters. -" (http://salhir.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/umair-haques-constructive-capitalism-and-the-constructive-paradigm/)